This plan suits a self-taught student, a trainer who wants a common thread, or a career changer. Allow two to three hours per week. Each week has a goal and readings drawn from the documentation and the simulator guides.
Before you start
Open TRIALO or the TikTok version and create your workspace. Keep a logbook: for each action, note what you did and why.
Week 1: lay the foundations
Goal: understand the levels of an account and create your first fictional campaigns.
Read: Create an ad account, Structure campaign, ad set and ad and Campaign, ad set, ad.
Week 2: target
Goal: define an audience, narrow it, widen it and observe the effect.
Read: Define targeting, Create lookalike audiences and Targeting and audiences on Meta.
Week 3: create and budget
Goal: test several creatives, split a budget, choose a duration.
Read: Placements and formats, Budgets, bidding and schedule and Ad copywriting and creatives.
Week 4: measure and optimize
Goal: read the results, state a hypothesis, change one variable.
Read: Read the key metrics, Test with an A/B test, CPM, CTR, CPC, CPA, ROAS and The ad A/B test.
Wrap-up
At the end, write one page: objective, choices, results, lessons. To go further, move on to the 12-week syllabus.
Adapting the plan
- If you have less time: keep only weeks 1, 2 and 4.
- If you are a trainer: turn the weeks into two-hour sessions.
- For the TikTok version: follow the guides in Social Ads TikTok-style and add TikTok video creatives in week 3.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to know marketing before starting? No, this plan starts from zero.
Do I need to spend money? No: everything is done in simulation.
What next? Prepare an official certification with Preparing for an online advertising certification or try a small supervised real project.
You can follow this plan in TRIALO: request access.